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How can someone possibly approach a film like Jackass: The Movie with a critical mind? Writing a critique of Jackass: The Movie is uniquely challenging since it's not a "movie" in a traditional sense - there's no acting, story, directing or camerawork to evaluate, and thus the only thing left to analyse is the entertainment value, which is entirely subjective. For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Johnny Knoxville and his troupe of daredevils (idiots is a more suitable term), Jackass is an MTV series featuring all sorts of crazy stunts and antics performed by the titular team. After a few successful seasons of craziness, the Jackass team raised the ante by creating this feature-length movie that could incorporate more profanity, more nudity, and some of the more outrageous stunts that were planned but weren't able to be aired as part of the show.
Let's get one thing straight here: if you're expecting Jackass: The Movie to adhere to some type of forced plot to give the stunts & skits an actual purpose, forget about it. There's no reason for it. Instead, this is simply a longer, more extreme episode of the television show, and the team made absolutely no bones about that fact. Moviemaking does not get much simpler than this: an episodic 85-minute showcase of stunts & skits performed by over-eager morons. There has been controversy towards the Jackass team over the years on account of incidents during which teenagers suffered injuries while imitating the show's stunts, and hence there are disclaimers and warnings at both the beginning and the end of the movie. But seriously, who the hell would want to submit themselves to such pain?!
Granted, there is a fair amount of funny material to behold within Jackass: The Movie (in this reviewer's humble opinion). Yet, there are a lot of misfires as well, and instances for which a viewer will not laugh but instead wince in repugnance or turn away from the screen. As a matter of fact, it's truly difficult to keep watching from time to time. For instance, at one stage Ehren McGhehey urinates on a snow-cone and devours it before vomiting and ingesting the vomit as well. As this unfolded, I was literally unable to watch as I felt sick to my stomach. Meanwhile, there's other material here that's just plain cruel or flat-out painful instead of funny. Put simply, the titular team failed to concoct more than a few genuinely amusing, clever segments. As a result, replay value is shockingly low.
Jackass: The Movie never pretends to be anything more than what it is: a juvenile collection of hijinks, scatological deeds and misdemeanours captured on film. No Oscar aspirations or illusions of excellence exist here, and that's perhaps why the movie is as popular as it is. Without a doubt, this is a film that will polarise viewers - most will either love or hate it, depending on their levels of tolerance for such lewd, puerile material. Me? I'm in the middle. I admit it, I laughed a few times, but not enough. There will be those who will laugh at this movie from beginning to end almost non-stop - that's to be expected. But for my taste, the skits & stunts here just aren't of a uniformly good standard.
4.7/10
